Trenches
by deemn
Summary: It happens because she’s stupid. Because she’s a stupid kind of crazy and somehow okay with breaking all her own rules.


DISCLAIMER: I do not own Firefly/Serenity. Joss does. Duh.

NOTE: It was a conscious choice to use English, **not** Chinese, curses.

**TRENCHES **

* * *

It happens because she's stupid. Because she's a _stupid_ kind of crazy and somehow okay with breaking all her own rules. 

It starts with her in the kitchen—mess hall—whatever. She's stirring the last bits of her hot chocolate and crying into it to cool it down. So maybe it doesn't start there—no, it doesn't, it really starts the morning she wakes up alone and he wakes up with Nandi and if it really starts there then it actually starts the moment she boarded this ship. His ship.

It starts with her in the kitchen. She's stirring the last bits of her hot chocolate and she's crying, openly but silently—not that anyone is around to hear or notice her. They've been "convalescing" on Persephone for three days now, and tonight everyone was happy and joyous and drunk on adrenaline and scotch—courtesy of the last cargo they'd shipped, one crate of which happened to get lost in the hold.

So everyone is passed out in their bunks: Zoe from the scotch on top of the whiskey on top of the beer; Simon next to Kaylee, their own kind of innocent; River, finally normal—well, as normal as she can be. Jayne, passed out with his latest whore on top of him.

_Whore_. Like she has room to judge.

Everyone's happy and asleep and she, Inara fucking Serra, would-be high priestess of House Madrassa, is crying into a tin mug of hot chocolate because it's her last cup of chocolate and she's so stupidly sentimental that she thinks she's someone else. Because he'd been so awkward when he'd come into her shuttle that day, acting like he was just back for round fifty-million-and-two of their ceaseless banter-flirting-arguing and like he didn't have something shiny and new in his hands. And because she no longer felt even slightly unsettled by knowing he'd heard her conversations yet again, because she was stunned by how _sweet_ he was being and how much it must have cost him to get that tin of chocolate.

Because it's her last cup of chocolate.

To her credit—and yes, she takes pride—she'd made that tin of chocolate last nearly four months, indulging only when it was _perfect_ or absolutely necessary. And no one else ever got a single taste—except, of course, for Mal, who swiped one of the first mugs from her hands, took a gulp, made a face and never tried again.

Because she hates being this pathetic, see-through and _desperate_. Her entire body hurts from client after client and from rarely being able to _get there_ and from walking around this ship with every muscle humming in case he comes near her. She hasn't climaxed since—since that one client with the peculiar set to his nose that made it so much easier to make him into someone else. Seven months ago.

It happens because she's stupid and not holed up in the privacy of her shuttle in her despicable state. It happens because she's sitting right at the table and looks up when Mal strides in with that heavy step and soft mouth that says "Mine" more clearly than any sign or license. It happens because Mal can drink like a fucking fish and she can't move fast enough to make him even start to think he drank too much.

"'Nara?"

She drops her head, closes her eyes, prays for a brief moment and feels guilty, because Buddha has a whole lot of more important things to take care of than one stupid companion's lame situation. "Mal. I thought you'd be asleep." Steady voice, steady hands, dry eyes when she looks up again. She would've been the best high priestess _ever_.

"Got the itch. What's the matter?"

_The itch_. Her mouth twitches. Mal gets antsy in one place for too long; three nights in, at any place, and he'll be up, setting a course for the next second they can get a clear take off. "What do you mean? We're leaving tomorrow—no need to get fidgety."

"Yeah, I know." And then he's standing there next to her with his thumbs hooked over his holster belt and those big soft eyes—fuck. "And I know you were just cryin. So tell me what's the matter."

She takes the last sip of chocolate and inhales her next step. "I think that scotch is getting to you, Mal—vision's getting a little blurry." She grins as wide as she can, holds up two fingers by her ear. "How many fingers?"

"Two. Stop bullshittin, 'Nara. Why you cryin?"

Damn his bull-headed persistence. "It was nothing, Mal, just leave it." She gets up, gets disoriented by his scent of leather and brimstone and goes for the first exit she sees.

He grabs her wrist and that's the stopping point. She just looks at his hand on her skin and he just looks at her and she's starting again because every muscle is _singing_ for more. "I ain't leavin it, 'Nara, so speak up."

"Mal, let go of me."

"_Tell me_."

"Let _go!"_

And now she's really gone and screwed herself, because she'd pushed on his shirt to try and loosen his grip and now she's touching him and crying more. The khol around her eyes must be dripping down her cheeks now, why can't he just let her go?

He's putting his arm around her, now, _fuck_, he's hugging her, he's talking into her hair, he's trying to comfort her and if she doesn't get out_now _so she pushes and pushes and starts to hit him and then she's fucked. He grabs both of her wrists, pushes her against the wall and pins her feet with his leg. "You crazy goddamn woman, you got the stupidest way of askin for help of anyone I ever met. What the fuck you hittin me for? Did I do somethin?"

This would be so much easier if he could pronounce one single "g" at the end of a word. She's still sobbing and his face with that peculiarly perfect nose is so close and it's such a relief when he stops being a browncoat and just becomes a man. He kisses exactly as she's dreamed: slow because he didn't see this coming, heavy because it's been too long. He kisses open-mouthed and open-souled and with all the muscles of his mouth that don't move when he talks, the ones that've been taunting her forever. He kisses with his hands and his shoulders and the weight of his hips and with urgency like they're dying. Which they are, if they could both be persuaded to open their eyes and check.

She doesn't think she'll ever open her eyes again because they're managing just fine closed, bodies only hitting a couple obstacles here and there on the trip down the corridor to her—oh, shit. This is not the hallway to her shuttle.

"Mal," she gets out before they find another wall and more skin and tongue and lips. "Mal." And then it's too late, because he's pushed on the panel with his ass and he's holding her so tight so hard so close and because he's such a good fucking kisser that they both forget the ladder bit of the whole "entering the Captain's bunk" process.

He lands first, she falls half on top of him, half on the floor, and that's when it happens. Because the second he's figured out what's happened, he's right next to her in the dark, brushing her hair away from her face, helping her to sit up and asking her two questions. "Did you break? Are you broke?"

It happens right then, on a cosmic scale of clichéd symbolism. So she just laughs—a real laugh, for once, one that comes from just below her navel but still bubbles out of her throat pretty if unpoised—and reaches for his face.

He is the looking kind of lover. He wants to see every inch of her, in whatever light he can get, and if she wasn't high priestess material she would've been somewhat nervous and startled by being naked and seemingly alone while he scrambles for light. He wants her to look at him when she climaxes—or at least up until she does, because it's too intense for her eyes to stay open. He wants, he wants, he wants, but he's Malcolm Reynolds and he's nothing if not fair. She likes his style. She's used to a show, knows how to be in the spotlight and in the shadows, would find it weird if she didn't have to be one or the other—but she also likes to work, to sweat, and is starting to get drunk off the equality.

When he finally comes and she's almost there again, he fans her hair out around her on the sheets and just looks at her as he brings her off with his hands. And he still just looks at her with his head propped up on his left fist and his right hand just following his eyes from her browbone to her lips to the sweat beneath her breasts to the strip of skin along each hip that makes her shiver even in her sleep. His voice is soft and low and she's hypnotized by the muscles he's not using. "You gonna tell me why you were cryin?"

Stubborn as a fucking mule. She outlines the tattoo on his hip and thinks of all the words to say and not say, of how his eyes smile when he just looks. It's a whisper when it finally comes, tiptoeing in with the triple sunlight. "I'm out of chocolate."


End file.
